A collective of community partners wants to rehabilitate an Underground Railroad site in Lawrence, currently serving as city storage, to be a public educational facility.
Grover Barn at 2819 Stone Barn Terrace boasts a documented visit from a group of abolitionists, including John Brown. The 1858 structure was designated a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site in 2018.
In 1980, the city made changes to the existing structure and added another wing to house Fire Station No. 4, which has since been decommissioned. The City of Lawrence owns and maintains the building.
Steve Nowak, executive director of the Watkins Museum of History, said a rehab project has been in the works since 2017, when the community group dubbed Guardians of Grover Barn formed to advocate for the building.
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Megan Bruey, a Hernly Architects employee working with the guardians group, told the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Monday night that they would remove all 1980s additions to the barn portion of the structure. Then, they’d add a second level to the connected fire station.
“And then all new infrastructure such as classes, offices, bathrooms, a mechanical vertical platform lift, those types of things will be installed in the fire station portion of the building,” she said.
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The first story of the fire station would house public-facing amenities, including gallery spaces, classrooms and a catering kitchen.
Bruey estimated that the full project would cost $3.8 million. That breaks down to $2.9 million for rehabilitation and $877K for site work.
“This is a very public project, so donations may be possible,” Bruey said.
Bruey and Nowak said there are multiple local, state and federal grants they could also apply to.
Thus far, the guardians and community partners have landed grants to install informational kiosks and contract a historic structures report to understand what steps are needed for restoration. In March of 2021, the city entered into a memorandum of understanding with community partners to explore potential uses of the Grover Barn site as a public center for historical research and digital storytelling.
Nowak and Bruey said the project would have two parts — fundraising and rehabilitation, each of which would take about two years.
“If we started fundraising now, in four years we’d have a facility open to the public,” Nowak said.
The team is proposing gallery programming centered on Indigenous peoples and native plants of the Great Plains, settlement and life on the Western Frontier, seeking freedom on the Underground Railroad, the growth of Lawrence and the importance of historic preservation. Those could include galleries examining the history of the Grovers and their farm, and the many ways the building has been used over the years.
Nowak said they want to have gallery parts either affixed to the walls or movable so the rooms can be multifunctional.
“We could have larger programs or different kinds of learning experiences. Yoga classes from Holcom Park could come down. We want to make sure that the building maintains maximum flexibility … because there’s something really cool about meeting in a place and maybe learning about heirloom vegetables in a site that was an 1858 agricultural site.”
Board member John Nalbandian asked Bruey and Nowak who will be responsible for the building and the project. Nowak said he hopes the city continues to pay for maintenance costs.
“The issue extends beyond maintenance as well as providing access and providing programming, as well,” he said.
Nowak said the solution is collaboration.
He said that Freedom’s Frontier has expressed interest in using the space as an office and welcoming center. The Watkins Museum could develop programs or facilitate school tours.
They could also engage other local organizations that host history programming, such as the Lawrence Public Library and Lawrence Juneteenth.
The board did not take any action Monday night as the presentation was informational. Nowak said that the Grover Barn group would need to go through a city approval process.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at [email protected].
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